Curiosity and the questions of life
Jinfo Blog

By Jan Knight

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Information overload? Sure, most of us suffer from it, and here’s a new way to drown in it even more but have fun and learn while doing it. Discovery Communications launched its newest web venture today, Curiosity.com.

You can’t help but appreciate the abundance of slick high end visuals offering answers on various topics ranging from the Solar System to Computer Parts, to Palynology. You too can learn how long it takes wood to petrify or find out if dogs suffer boredom. Curiosity.com says it “takes you on a journey to seek answers to life’s many questions”. Their four minute video provides some explanation to this new way of becoming well informed.

Curiosity is a different type of Q&A site. Unlike Answers.com where almost anyone can sign up to answer questions, or like Wikipedia  where information is basically crowdsourced, this new venture invites experts to provide input on topics on which they can offer an authoritative perspective. To be an expert one must be “an appropriate professional and/or and appropriately published author".  Applicants must submit biographical information as well names of societies and publications that are pertinent, and evidence of expertise.

In addition to the site offering information on seemingly random topics you can also search for topics and it will bring up an associated list of responses. It won’t necessarily answer the exact question you pose, but will provide enough random answers to related topics to keep you occupied for hours!

According to today’s Fast Company story on this subject, the site is, "essentially, a promotional vehicle for the Discovery Channel’s new TV show of the same name and notes that the creator hopes to appeal to “learners” who come back regularly as much for amusement as they do for answers". An earlier Fast Company story, Who’s Dominating Q&A Sites?  A: No One provides a run down of a large number of similar sites and explores how many niche players there are without any one really leading the way.

So, if you’re bored, go and find out just how often Interpol makes an arrest or why most rockets head east after they launch! There are also probably plenty of opportunities for a number of readers to become one of those experts.

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